Raging Cynic

In Mr. Ryan’s vocabulary, it seems so. Paul Ryan (Rep - Wi), the Republicans’ guy on the House Budget Committee has found it fitting to label Obama’s budget plan, should it pass, as “the moment America turned European.”[ WSJ - 1 Apr., 2009]. This, as opposed to the GOP plan which, as he puts it, would “preserve our system of protecting our natural rights.” I must be confused, would this be the right to pay through the nose for public education on the colleges that are hiring more part time faculty and raising tuition due to lack of government funding? Or the right to take a tragic credit hit due to some unforeseen medical expense? Maybe the right of our veterans to have to drive farther and farther to visit a VA clinic since the Bush administration cut their funding.

It’s far past the time that we as Americans stopped letting pundits and politicians try to scare us with xenophobia. Germany, with the largest GDP in Europe and fourth largest in the world, offers great health-care benefits to citizens, nearly (and in some regions, completely) free college, a safety net for retirement and unemployment. All of this while taxing corporations LESS than America does (so Mr. Ryan can get off his high-horse and shut up about how the Obama tax plan would strangle the small-business). By using a (shock) progressive tax system, which places more responsibility on those who benefit more from the national well-being.

The Cold Ware is long over. And even when it wasn’t, Communism was never Socialism. The American citizenry needs to realize, at long last, the benefits of socially responsible spending and taxation.  Mr. Ryan can watch from the corner.

In an April 1st opinion piece released to the Wall Street Journal [l ink], former Bush “Adviser” Karl Rove accused the Obama administration of engaging in tactics of intimidation to bolster support for the proposed economic plan. I’m not going to argue costs and benefits of the plan here. This is a “pot calling the kettle black” rant. Karl Rove, whose campaigns of intimidation and mudslinging  got Bush into the White House and helped start us down this road of insanity and prove to the world that and idiot can run the world (so long as we don’t care how it’s run), has the gaul to start saying Obama isn’t playing fair by reminding a Democrat which side he’s supposed to be on?

It seems to me that what Rove is really upset about is the (extremely vague) possibility of his job description becoming obsolete with the arrival of politicians who choose not to hide behind hatchet men.

Well McCain’s really done an amazing job here. He and that vacuous puppet Palin have created a truly amazing Campaign of Hate. This really is a disgusting low in the election. Already, McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” has been riddled by an amazing amount of one-sided number fudging and just flat out lying to the American people. Then the debacle of “trooper gate” and McCain’s near refusal to debate Obama; both gross insults to the noble idea of an informed electorate. Now, their new despirate low is pure, unadultrated racism.

Obama’s got a foreign sounding name, he’s not a near-death white guy, so he’s a terrorist? Is this the message McCain’s supporters want to send to America and the world? That we’re so close-minded and arrogent? That they such uneducated racists? This is the sad state of the Republican Party? They’re so power hungry that they’ll let McCain make such a disgusting specitle of this election?

It’s more than sickening, more than disapointing. It’s a sad, shameful reflection on our country today.

Well after “Maverick” John McCain decided to be generous and humor the idea of an informed electorate, I thought we might actually see something interesting happen. And despite the fantastic efforts of Jim Lehrer to get a dialogue going between the two candidates, I, along with probably the more critical minded Americans, was quite disappointed.

McCain came off as nothing but a stubborn, ancient, ill prepared bag of hot wind. Looked like Bob Dole in his mechanized motions and lack of intellectual flexability. Obama, despite his fine rehortical technique, seemed humble and timid. Nothing wrong with being being gratious, but he pulled the door open a bit too far and seemed more of a door mat. Of course, McCain’s inability to address, or even make eye-contact with, Obama won’t affect the decisions of those that follow him religiously (or, really, for religous reasons, follow him) since they’ll no doubt see this as evidence as his ability to be a hard-liner. Really, it’s just a form a petty fear and gross insecurity which he coveres up by speaking over everyone else. The classic child’s reasoning that the loudest voice is most correct.

Obama had a rare opportunity to stand up to such arrogance by challenging one of McCain’s many tirades and show that when he meets with dictators, he’ll be able to get a word in. While he, unlike McCain, did address his opponent directly, I just didn’t see that he adiquatly presented himself as strong in the face of non-academic, non-regulated adversity.

So what is gained from this? Did we learn anything that will help us in November? Not much, McCain’s an arrogant hot-head and Obama’s Mr. Cool. So, not much new. The greatist revilation, to me, is the meer fact that McCain was so ready to be a no-show. Is he afraid of what people will think? Afraid of an informed populace? Or just so easily disrespectful of people he hopes to represent to the world that he feels we don’t deserve his presence at such forums? Maybe the good people at Black Box Voting got it right and McCain’s counting on the foul play factor to cinch his bid.

I just hope the Biden Palin show is more entertaining.

I’m sure all of us state-side have been thoroughly inundated with those messages about the switch from analog to all-digital television. I’ve been seeing these spots for months without giving them much thought. Seems just like government televised spam to me. I’m sure it’d cost less to do a mass mailing, but we’re talking TV here, not something as un-important as, say, ballot measures and polling places. I digress. After enough of those spots I finally started to think about graft. Let’s face it, it takes a lot to get those government gears turning.

Finally a thought came to me. People can get discounts for their digital converter boxes, but how about the smaller stations that still have to try to reach their customers? Lower-power stations don’t have to switch to digital transmissions. Less viewers means less revenue for them.

And the viewers in remote areas who were relying on these smaller stations, who tailored their news for smaller, more localized group (almost like the bloggers of broadcast TV), what will they have? Won’t they be more likley to swtich to the shinier digital stations? Stations that can be tuned in with that digital box without having to fool with more buttons and settings? Even less revenue for those smaller stations.

Media consolidation! That’s what it boild down to. Running smaller stations that already can’t afford the switch will be pinched harder and harder with less viewers and ad revenue.

Here’s a fine example from the Charlston Gazette [ link] where WSAZ had to fire eight people to afford the $4 million equipment upgrade. How many stations throughout the US are going to be shaken down or left on the curb?

Oh, and in a humourous note, the city of Wilmington, N.C., was used as a proving ground, switchign to digital last week, months ahead of the nation’s Feburary switch. What’d they to? Flipped a giant switch. Adorable.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m pleased as punch that Hillary finially came to her senses and dropped out. Better for all of us, I’m sure she sees that. And, though I don’t know how much good a Catholic VP will be for building Obama’s support base and I don’t know much about the guy, I didn’t know much about Gore before he came up either.

What’s bothering me though is the several very redundent emails per day that I’m getting from the various Democratic groups I’m affiliated with. And it’s the same stuff. They’re just recycling the same material three, four, or five times a day. Crying out loud peope, organize your selves! These are different groups for a reason, they should be serving their different demographics with different information. If there’s information on other lists, include it as links, blurbs.

Is it that they’re just too lazy to do that? Don’t have the expertiese? Or just lacking the organization? Maybe it’s that comic rule of threes blown out of proportion; they think that if they repeate the information over and over, people are more likely to read it? All gets ignored by me. One compiled newsletter would work so much better.

And I get even more pissed of at NBC. Part of their exclusive US rights package for the Olympics is that viewers in the good ol’ “Land of the Free” cannot access streaming web feeds.

Is it too much to ask that I’d want to watch the Woman’s Beach Volleyball finals LIVE?

Heaven forbid that I should be able to get some information or current events from the internet. I can get watch one-legged coke-whores crapping on masochistic midgets live, but live - REALLY live, not that NBC 3 hour delay joke of a live broadcast! - Olympic coverage is censored.

I’ll hope to have another post soon with a way around this….probably involving a Chinese proxy. Love the irony.

What the hell is NBC doing?

Would you like and example on how things go wrong when you spend too much money on graphic effects and not enough on talent? Bob Costas and his parade of offensive, overly opinionated, and overly obnoxious chorus of “Sportscasters.” Now, I usually tune out who’s saying what due to my preference to avoid such annoying and inane prater, but this Olympic cycle just seems to scream cultural ignorance and racial bias far more often than I’m used to.

Now this might be due in large part to the clearly dated attitudes that Béla Károly repeatedly expresses through condescending comments about the Chinese gymnasts. Maybe it’s the way that Mary Carillo comments on everything but tennis. Maybe it’s that no one on the NBC team has realized that they couldn’t pronounce an non-European name to save their lives and takes no steps to correct this (and why shold they, it’s not like they had any notice that the Olympics would be in Beijing or could possibly think that a person with an Asian name might be qualifying or earning  a spot that puts them in competition with a European nation).

Is there any doubt that the controversy over the tie between He Kexin and Nastia Liukin wouldn’t have been heard if it was Liukin who took the gold? And how about the commentator referring to one of the Chinese gymnasts as a “little firecracker?”

How much time do we have to spend listening to the inane opinion breaking through an otherwise entertaining international contest? How hard would it be for NBC to get some people who know enough to not be so annoying and a bit more objective? Is this NBC’s final admission of not giving a damn?

How bad is it in the international context? I’ve got a friend in China now (yea, the same China that’s repeadly accused of journalistic hyper-control) who were shocked that such blatantly narcissistic, nationalistic opining is part-and-parcel of our Olympic broadcasts.

Then there’s the issue of their liberal use of the word “LIVE.” Their broadcasts are delayed by at hours. I can see the results of an event before the start hits the airwaves. They even keep that “LIVE” tag up during the slow motion replays. Do they hope to be so obvious about this that they assume we know they’re lying? It’s not like a few minute delay to do some post processing, it’s a few hours we’re talking about? If they can’t do it live, don’t say it’s live, is that so hard?

Here’s the true shame that all of this brings to light: print journalism is going out of business but operations like NBC keep running on nothing more than bidding for exclusive coverage and shiny graphics while they let standards of integrity and tallent slip farther and farther from the line of actual journalism. But then, of course, it’s been a long and steady transition from news to entertainment.

Eh, why am I even surprised anymore?

    It was over a good coffee yesterday that I came to a sudden sad epiphany. Hillary’s proud and loud core of, what’s the term?, “working white,” supporters who are so vocal about her beating her dead horse into a powder are looking to handicap themselves. It’s a pretty clear demographic split between more educated, higher earning Democrats supporting Obama and the less educated, minimum wage Democrats supporting Hillary. Wooing her core, Hillary routinely promotes short-sighted solutions to pressing issues (look at this “gas tax holiday” plan of hers), and short-sighted attacks on Obama (i.e. the red phone ad where she claims she’s more qualified because of years in Washington which, following that logic, means we should vote for McCain).

Let us assume the Hillary, like most who occupy the office of President will plan on a second term. Naturally, she will look to court the same group of her supporters who elected her the first time to form the foundation of her support base. Establish a strong base, and spread out from there; standard strategy. What initiatives, then, can we expect Hillary to take with regard to the lower-class? Well, if she wants their support in 2012, she’ll want them to stay in the lower-class. Take the axiom that “demographics are destiny;” if Hillary’s supporters become, demographically, more similar to Obama supporters (more educated, higher wages, less rural), they become less-likely to support her because she’s no longer looking out for their interests.

This simply means that she isn’t looking out for their interest now. Hilary has a vested interest in hampering the social mobility of America’s lower strata.

Does this change anything? Probably not. Some of the most destructive and treacherous agents of politics and political change have been supported overwhelmingly by those groups who had nothing to lose but their lives and whatever modicum of freedom they had previously enjoyed. The person who justifies his actions by saying “it can’t get any worse” is often proven wrong; a desperate choice isn’t a thoughtful decision.

The alternative is clear. Where Hillary would want to keep the lower class cemented in place (or better yet for her, grow it), Obama would want to improve earnings and education to grow his supporters. Isn’t that the American Dream? The pinnacle of Social Mobility? To have our highest elected official WANT to help us become wealthier and more educated?
But then, it’s your vote.

Just caught a commercial for the latest generation of Subaru SUV. Seems fantastic. Just not in that “wow that’s swell” way; more in the “are they serious?” way. The only thing they say in the whole 30-second spot is that it’s bigger. A bigger SUV; great. Now, it may have a better MPG, may have more safety options, maybe it’s a resigned interior or drive-line to make it safer and more reliable. But they don’t say anything on that; it’s just bigger.

Are we still wallowing in the era of monster-SUVs? Now, among my California urbanite circle, taking plastic bags instead of a canvas tote out of the supermarket is looked down upon (not that it stops people).

All the same, it can’t be denied that high-gas prices aren’t keeping the gas-guzzlers and mammoth SUVs off the road. Dealerships, even here in California’s Bay Area which boasts some of the nation’s highest gas prices, keep lining SUVs at the front of their lots.

Is there a solution? Several years after Ireland passed laws forcing supermarkets to charge customers for a plastic bag, nearly everyone’s switched to canvas bags and walking out with a  plastic bag has become shameful. Taxes on autos and gasoline in Asia seems to be keeping auto purchases from ballooning even more than they might be want to. So what would it take for Americans to wake up to the fact that we’re addicted to a practice that’s making our lives shorter, our environment more toxic, our economy weak, even our government subject to gross manipulation.

By the way, May 15th is bike to work day here in the Bay Area. Even if you don’t have a bike, give mass transit a shot. Google maps does a good job of offering directions using public transit.